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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 



BY THE 

RET. B. B. HOTCHKIN. 



a 



"WRITTEN FOR THE BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 
NO. 821 CHESTNUT STREET. 



e>1 \i* 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 

JAMES DUNLAP, Treas., 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District 

of Pennsylvania. 



STEREOTYPED BT 

JESPER HARDING & SON, 

INQUIRER BUILDING, SOUTH THIRD STREET, PHILADELPHIA. 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 



DEFINITION. 



We use the term Infidelity in the pop- 
ular sense, which restricts it to its re- 
lation to religion. Still, even when thus 
restricted, it is not easy to define it. It 
is Protean shaped. This results in 
great part from the fact that it is not a 
s} r stem, but a negation, seeking to 
break up systems without offering one 
affirmative article in their place. Des- 
titute of a single positive sentiment 
for a bond of union, it exists, not to 
give, but to destroy faith; never to 
build, but always to lay waste. Its 

(3) 



4 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

whole strength is for desolation. Hence 
it is capable of great versatility, ena- 
bling its adroit advocates, at their con- 
venience, to slip from under any specific 
definition. Still, where exactness of 
meaning is important, it becomes ne- 
cessary to define, as near as possible, 
the thing of which we speak. 

The Infidelity now under review is 
not a mere scepticism. It is true that 
much which passes under the last term, 
is more deeply obstinate and malignant 
than the name properly implies, and 
not a few who claim for themselves 
the softer appellation of sceptics, would 
find their proper place among undis- 
guised infidels. But that which is 
scepticism, and nothing more, may 
consist with candour, openness to con- 
viction, and even honest inquiry after 
truth. It does not necessarily involve 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

opposition to truth, bitterness toward 
it, or a reprobate spirit. True, the 
difficulties in the way of belief, which 
it presupposes, may be so persistently 
maintained, in the face of the strongest 
demonstration, as to show that the 
boundary of candour is passed, and the 
point of voluntary and resolute unbe- 
lief is reached ; but the time has then 
come to give another name to this sen- 
timent toward Divine Revelation. In 
the present discussion, we detach 
scepticism from infidelity. 

Neither can the Infidelity in ques- 
tion properly claim identity with cer- 
tain doctrines of heathen philosophy, 
to which it has sometimes turned for 
countenance. We shall have occasion, 
in the sequel, to speak of an elemen- 
tary distinction between such infidelity 

as is now taught among us, and the 
l* 



O INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

supposed atheistic features of some of 
the schools of Greece and Rome. We 
only refer to it, in this place, for the 
purpose of reaching a definition. 

Neither is the Infidelity before us a 
simple unbelief. We fall far short of 
describing the avowed infidel, as he is 
known in a Christian country, when 
we say he has no faith in our holy 
Scriptures. True as it is, that, on the 
subject of religion, his views aspire to 
nothing higher than a negation, still we 
shall directly see that a positive object 
is before his mind, and his tendencies 
are ever toward it as the needle to the 
pole. It may be said that unbelief is 
all that is meant by the word Infidel- 
ity. Etymologically this is true; but 
words often make out for themselves 
specific senses, which absorb their de- 
rivative meanings. We speak of Infi- 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 7 

delity as it exists under our notice, — 
the Infidelity which we meet in open 
antagonism to Christianity. 

Half a century ago, the use of the 
single term French Infidelity might 
have stood in the place of any further 
description. It stood unmasked and 
could not be mistaken. There is now 
more occasion for a positive definition, 
and in giving it, we make the following 
analysis : 

1. The Infidelity here described 
wholly rejects the doctrine of the 
Divine inspiration of our holy Scrip- 
tures, and wholly repudiates their at- 
thority as a rule of faith and conduct 
sent from heaven. 

2. It rejects the Bible in such terms 
as involve the denial of any sensible 
intercourse between God and his crea- 
tures. Men are placed under no law 



8 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

for the regulation of their conduct, 
higher than their instincts, reason, or 
the necessities of their condition. 

3. It denies any connection between 
the present conduct of men, and a 
future state of existence. An occasion- 
al dim fancy, borrowed from the hea- 
then doctrine of transmigration, may 
seem to form an exception to the liter- 
al truth of this statement ; but these 
exceptions are rare, and of no practi- 
cal account when they exist. The 
denial of any moral relation between 
the present life, and all beyond it, and 
generally the denial of any future 
state of existence, may be set down as 
one of the characteristics of Infidelity. 

4. It wholly ignores the religious 
sentiment in man. We refer to the 
instinctive consciousness of the human 
mind, that religion is a necessity and 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 9 

duty growing out of our relation to 
some superior power; and that there 
must be some moral ligament to bind the 
actors and events of the present, to 
some higher scenes and. vaster results. 
This is not the place to show, as will 
be shown under the proper head, that, 
with the single exception before us, peo- 
ple of every age and clime have given 
some practical response to the call of 
human nature, for something which 
may serve as a religion. Infidelity, 
as we now use the word, repudiates 
this inborn sense that religion is a 
want of our moral natures. To give 
the definition the greatest possible 
plainness — for so it is — religion itself 
is abandoned. The religion of the 
Bible is not exchanged for some other 
religious system, as that of Confucius 
or Buddha; not even for the religion 



10 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

of reason in any appreciable sense ; but 
the transition is from religion to irre- 
ligion. 

5, This Infidelity becomes a princi- 
ple of active hostility toward Christian- 
ity. It pursues the religion of the Bi- 
ble with an opposition which is bitter 
and unrelenting. When it feels itself 
loosened from the restraints of public 
Opinion, it speaks of the holy Scrip- 
tures and the Christian church, in terms 
of opprobrium and virulence which be- 
tray a deadly hatred. 

Illustrations of these points will 
come up in their place. Here we have 
simply mentioned them, to make the 
definition of the Infidelity under dis- 
cussion, as accurate as the nature of 
the case will admit. With this defini- 
tion before us, we proceed to state 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 11 

THE ARGUMENT OF THIS TRACT. 

When the inner life of Infidelity is 
exposed, we regard the necessity of 
an elaborate defence of Christianity 
against its attacks, as in a great mea- 
sure removed. 

It sometimes appears in disguised 
forms, professing reverence for the holy 
Scriptures, and seeming to accept them 
in certain meanings; but subjecting 
them to interpretations which, like 
the weird sisters in Macbeth, 

" palter with us in a double sense," 

until the mind is unconsciously loos- 
ened from a true faith in their inspira- 
tion from heaven, or from reverence 
of their divine authority. It is often 
a laborious task, requiring a deep exam- 
ination of facts in the natural world, 
and of truths in the departments of 



12 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

reason and ethics, to meet these spe- 
cious assaults upon Divine Revela- 
tion. 

But Infidelity, in the form now un- 
der review, is a weak, though wily foe. 
The most satisfactory processes of rea- 
soning against it have been short; they 
lie mostly within the range of common 
minds, and they deal largely with the 
moral sense of men. Where the con- 
science acts freely, a few obvious 
principles, aided by such a knowledge 
of facts as all Can acquire, are sufficient 
to sustain the friends of the Bible in 
the field of argument. 

Let such reasonings as we find in 
Faber, Leslie, or Nelson, be read with 
reference to what is said above, and 
who does not observe, with surprise, 
the accessibility of the means for 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 13 

reaching truth, and the directness and 
simplicity of the way to it? 

Gibbon and Hume must watch everv 
turn in voluminous compositions — the 
labour of the best years of their lives 
— to get out, through every opening 
which can be forced, an insidious 
attack upon Divine Revelation. Ask 
Volney for an argument; and he takes 
you into the studio and shows you a 
picture. Demand it of Paine, and he 
leads you through a labyrinth after it, 
and when it is reached, it turns out a 
burlesque. 

The reasonings of Infidelity are 
never elemental. They are not ad- 
dressed to the fundamentals of Christ- 
ianity, but to its minor parts— commonly 
to its accidentals. The highest seem- 
ing triumph of the Infidel, is to rive now 

and then a chip from the eternal 
2 



14 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

pyramid. Some calm eye looks a 
little more closely for the actual re- 
sult of so many labours, when, lo ! the 
proper surface of the structure has 
not received a scratch. The destruc- 
tive started a few excrescences from 
the marble, and then fancied himself 
standing over a heap of " Ruins." 

We feel no call to multiply argu- 
ments in defence of Divine Revelation. 
Incidentally we may run over some 
beaten ground, but it is not our object 
to reproduce views which are familiar 
to such as have read on the subject. 
The purpose of this Tract is simple. 
It is to force one reluctant witness to 
the stand ; to give to Infidelity a voice 
to speak, not from the pens or lips of 
those who give it an artificial utter- 
ance, but from its own inner soul ; to 
behold it, not as it writes and lectures, 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 15 

but as it is and does. We intend to listen 
to this testimony from various points — 
from the stand-point of its own history; 
from that of reason and philosophical 
inquiry ; but especially as it is given 
by the witness when brought face to 
face with the holy Scriptures. There 
we expect it to proclaim itself in such 
terms as betray its own writhings under 
the power of God through the word, 
thus revealing the existence of that 
power there, as palpably as the contor- 
tions of the animalcule, in the solar 
microscope, tell of a sun whose burn- 
ing rays are concentrated on them 
through the instrument. We have often 
enough heard its advocates : we have 
now seated ourselves to hear it. We 
summon Infidelity as a witness. 



16 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

INFIDELITY IN THE PRESENCE OF ITS OWN 
HISTORY. 

We look only to a few general facts 
and features in this history, carefully 
selecting those which best illustrate 
the character and spirit of Infidelity. 

It will belong more to a future part 
of the examination, to note a striking 
significancy in the fact that the whole 
of this history is limited to one certain 
field. Infidelity, as known to us, is 
the growth of a Christian soil, fasten- 
ing itself like a parasite to Christianity, 
to draw its support from the life-blood 
of the church. In its present form, it 
was unknown to the world, until it 
awoke to being in antagonism to the 
Divine mercy, which flows from the 
cross, and in this form it has followed 
the gospel of Christ through the 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 17 

world, never seeking any field, but 
that which has been consecrated by 
evangelical toils and triumphs. It 
cares little who worship false gods 
and dumb idols ; it enters into no cru- 
sade against the Shasters or the 
Koran ; it reserves all its bitterness 
for Christ and Christianity, and devotes 
its whole existence to the war against 
the Christian gospel. We expect soon 
to draw, from the very limitations of 
its history, a signal example of the 
power and judgment of God over re- 
probate hearts. 

We turn to another fact in its his- 
tory, which, under all the circumstan- 
ces of the case, strongly illustrates its 
atrociousness. We refer to its miser- 
able failure, in regard to success. We 
do not infer its atrocity from the mere 

fact that it has met with poor encour- 
2* 



18 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

agement from the world, for that would 
be a wild and wicked judgment. Much 
that is really good, has been crushed 
under the public frown, But we look 
at the great facilities of Infidelity for 
access to men; at the corresponding 
difficulties of Christianity ; at the fact 
that, notwithstanding all this, the ad- 
herents of the latter are, to those of 
the former, as ninety nine to one hun- 
dred, and probably in much greater 
proportion ; and then at the manifest 
reason why these results are such as 
they are ; and from these premises, we 
deduce the odiousness of Infidelity in 
view of the moral sense of mankind. 

Infidelity seems to approach the 
masses of mankind with the highest 
adaptations for success. It comes to 
a world lying in wickedness. It finds 
human hearts depraved, and impatient 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF- 19 

of any restraints upon their depravity. 
The promptings to sin are strong, the 
restrictions of the Divine law are un- 
welcome, and the prospect of future 
retribution is a bitter ingredient in the 
cup of pleasure. Infidelity proposes 
to remove these restraints and abolish 
this retribution. It has but one law 
of enjoyment — inclination ; one law of 
abstinence — present peril. The man 
of vindictiveness, lust, or pleasure, 
could not frame a license for his pas- 
sions broader than that which is here 
offered him. The man also who recoils 
from the grosser forms of depravity, but 
at the same time revolts from the gos- 
pel standard of holiness, may here re- 
joice in exemption from the duty of 
Christian self-denial, and from the 
dread of future accountability. 



20 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

We may add to these facilities of 
access, the fact that Infidelity accom- 
modates itself to the level of the 
masses. Its reasonings, sarcasms, and 
jests belong to the stump, and not the 
professorial chair. This statement is 
pre-eminently true of the present cen- 
tury. We find some writers who have 
a finer appreciation of moral proprieties, 
and loftier aspirations of character, but 
who are really in hostility with the 
Bible, taking a higher ground. They 
are cultivated and intelligent, and they 
feel the value of both intellectual and 
moral reputation. Perhaps they shrink 
from the stigma of an association with 
those who treat Divine Revelation 
with open scorn ; perhaps they are in- 
fluenced by the pride of Philosophy, 
or the ambition to strike out new the- 
ories in science ; but whatever else be 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 21 

the motive, all other incitements are 
under the ever quickening one of alien- 
ation from the Divine law. They seek 
more specious modes of reaching the 
practical ends of Infidelity. They in- 
vent their glossaries, work out their 
philosophical interpretations, or enforce 
the authority of new discoveries in sci- 
ence, upon the meaning of the Bible, 
until they have wrought a semi-infidel- 
ity for the aristocracy of mind, which 
effectually secures the moral repose, 
without the shame of avowed unbelief. 
But Infidelity undisguised turns 
from the intellectual aristocracy to the 
people. Among them, it is the better, 
as it is the bolder warfare. Subtle 
theories, which keep a hold on the 
name of Christianity, and yet play 
into the hands of its adversaries, are 
not to the taste of the masses. The 



22 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

human mind pays homage to consisten- 
cy and intrepidity, and in both these 
respects an unmasked Infidelity has 
the advantage over all semi-infidel 
theories of interpretation. Duplicity 
is odious ; and to plain minds it will 
always appear double-tongued to read 
a Book which says one thing, and apply 
to it interpretations which speak the 
opposite. 

More than this, outspoken Infidelity 
accommodates itself best to mental in- 
dolence ; and with multitudes, this is 
an influential consideration. It is a 
laborious work to transcendentalize 
the language of the Bible ; to examine 
its coincidences with, or divergencies 
from, the physics and metaphysics of 
science ; to emendate, fill up supposed 
ellipses, and work out possible render- 
ings ; to carry it about among the " ves- 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF, 23 

tiges of creation/' or trail its genesis 
among the " types of mankind." It is 
cheaper to drop it outright. Pseudo- 
philosophical annotations and rational- 
istic interpretations tax the mind. But 
any one who can comprehend a sneer, 
may find intellectual pastime under an 
infidel lecture. 

Thus Infidelity, pandering to ihe 
passions of our race, and accommodat- 
ing itself to the mental habits which 
are widely prevalent, would seem to 
approach the people with every reason- 
able prospect of success. 

This prospect seems largely increased 
when, on the other hand, we turn to 
Christianity, and observe how it must 
encounter the strongest prejudices, 
and conquer all the moral bias of the 
human mind, before it can be accepted 
as the object of faith. Men must be- 



24 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

lieve those things which, above all 
others, their pride prompts them to 
disbelieve. They must crucify those 
passions and feelings which are most 
tenacious in their natures, and the 
indulgence of which, is the dearest 
idolatry of the corrupt heart. They 
must bend under obligations of duty 
which such a heart always loathes, 
and they must accept favour upon 
terms which reduce their boasted inde- 
pendence to beggary. 

Infidelity says, Walk after the law 
of your own nature, and please your- 
self: the gospel of Christ says that 
the only fulfilling of the Divine law 
of life, is in self-denial, or as it is ex- 
pressed in figures which speak for 
themselves — bearing the cross, and 
crucifixion to the world. The prom- 
ises of Infidelity are carnal secur- 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 25 

ity in pleasure, with no fear of 
reckoning beyond the present life : 
those of the gospel are tribulation and 
great exposures for the sake of Christ. 
Infidelity exalts humanity to regal in- 
dependence : the gospel requires every 
sinner to become an applicant for mercy, 
and to receive every kindness of God 
as fi grace. 

These contrasts are vivid. We all 
know the proclivities of human nature, 
the strength of its unholy promptings, 
and its impatience of restraint. Leav- 
ing a Divine influence over the decisions 
of men out of view, and reasoning a 
priori of the probabilities in the case, 
who would not say that, in this race, 
Infidelity must win the prize ? Apart 
from that Divine control of means and 
hearts, its appliances have the highest 

adaptation to the end sought, while 
3 



26 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

Christianity is devoid of every essen- 
tial element of popularity. So we 
should certainly have said, before 
knowing anything of the power of God 
in the holy Scriptures, or witnessing 
any example of the rival efforts of the 
two forces in the same field. 

But we have now a surer guide 
than this a priori reasoning. Ages of 
contest have settled the question as one 
of fact, and not of probabilities. And 
what is the result? Among all the 
leading forms of opposition, with which 
Christianity, in its progress, has had 
to contend, Infidelity has been least 
felt. It has been the weakest numer- 
ically, and weakest in the charac- 
ter and influence of its champions. 
Through centuries of effort, it has 
never come dangerously near to a gen- 
eral ascendency. It has never enjoyed 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 27 

so much as a local triumph, except in 
a single instance ; and that one excep- 
tion proved, in the end, a disaster to 
it. The only time the world gave it 
rope enough, it hung itself. 

Almost from the moment of its 
establishment, Christianity has been 
the accepted system of the civilized 
world. For strength of influence, it 
has been the leading religious system 
in the world. It has attached itself 
to the most brilliant of the human races, 
and the most enlightened nations. It 
has marched with them in all their con- 
quests, settled itself in every territory 
which they have acquired, and become 
the life of every empire which they 
have founded. These are facts in 
historjr, and they were never more 
true than at the present time. There 
is not now one fully civilized nation, 



28 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

but glories in the name of a Christian 
people ; and the influence of any of the 
leading Christian nations — say Great 
Britain, with her population of thirty 
millions — is felt over the globe with 
fifty times the power of the influence 
of China, with her two hundred and 
fifty millions. 

In the midst of this strength of Christ- 
ianity, numerical and potential, Infidel- 
ity is lost. True, it lives. Now and 
then we meet with a man who openly 
professes it; here and there we see a 
bill posted, notifying us of a Sunday 
lecture for denouncing the Bible ; and 
occasionally there is a pompous parade 
of a challenge for discussion, from one 
of its champions. There is always 
more or less of it lingering about the 
drift-ways of life; and at rare intervals, 
a man of higher respectability is found 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 29 

about the purlieus of its places of pub- 
lic assembly. True to its nature as 
the vampire to Christianity, it comes 
into higher activity in times of peculiar 
religious interest. But it is a vigour 
which soon exhausts itself, and all set- 
tles back into the old up-hill track. 

Look at New York with its 300 
Christian churches, and how many 
" Halls of Science," or congregations 
of Infidels, exist beside them ? Possi- 
bly two or three. Take Philadelphia 
with its 280 Christian churches, and we 
have, on the other hand, one " Sunday 
Institute," and no other Infidel assem- 
bly of which we have learned. Count- 
ing the attendance, the disparity would 
be still more striking, (jo to Balti- 
more, Boston, Richmond, or Charleston, 
and the result would not be materially 

different. Go even to our western 
3* 



30 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

cities, into which the German States 
have poured so largely, not of their ra- 
tionalism, but of the gross Infidelity 
which is the proper residuum of a ration- 
alistic ferment ; there the proportion of 
infidels is larger, it is true, but they 
are still a miserable minority, if we 
reckon people according to their undis- 
guised professions. 

And yet we have always heard that 
the cities are the hot-beds of Infidelity. 
If it is so hopeless of triumph there, 
what must it be in the rural districts 
where, as an open profession, it has 
scarcely a name ? The great heart of 
the country is there, and there, how- 
ever low vital religion may sometimes 
be, the great mass call Christianity 
their system, and cases are exceeding- 
ly rare — often not one in a township — 
in which it is boldly denied. 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 31 

With such results before us, after 
the experiment of centuries, we do In- 
fidelity no wrong, when we pronounce 
it a miserable failure. It met Christ- 
ianity with every apparent prospect of 
success; it seemed to possess superior 
facilities for access to the people, in the 
very respects in which the gospel ap- 
peared forbidding; and yet Christianity 
is, at this moment, the controlling reli- 
gious system of the world, everywhere 
known and influential, and fast growing 
in influence, while Infidelity has sunk 
to the smallest of the impediments in 
its way. 

What is the moral of all this? The 
best answer to the question will be 
given, when we bring Infidelity into 
the presence of Divine Revelation, and 
hear it relate its own experience of the 
power of God through the gospel. 



32 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

Not wishing to forestall that point, we 
will only say here, that Infidelity con- 
fesses, through its history, that it is 
too atrocious for human depravity. It 
shocks even a sin-loving world. It is 
so plainly the enemy of all that is pure, 
lovely, just, and of good report, that 
the wicked, as well as the good, recoil 
from it. With all the tendencies in its 
favour, which grow out of the opposition 
of depraved hearts to the moral purity 
of the Bible, still every finer sentiment 
of the human mind loathes it, and it 
must find even a worse race than ours, 
before it can triumph. 

This is the decision of the civil- 
ized world. It is the world's verdict 
against Infidelity, on the charge that 
it is a moral nuisance — the verdict of 
even a jury with a bias in its favour. 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF^ 33 

How then could it stand before an 
impartial judgment? 

There is still another point in the 
testimony of Infidelity, as heard from 
its history — the witness which it bears 
respecting its own immoral tenden- 
cies. 

We should naturally come to the 
inference that, if it answers in any 
measure to the description thus far 
afforded, its influence upon private 
and public virtue must be deeply per- 
nicious. We have no hesitation in 
adopting this inference. No assertion 
could be less hazardous than this, that 
by removing from vice its most power- 
ful restraints, and proposing no sancti- 
fying influence in their place as the 
safeguard of virtue, it becomes the 
foster parent of the most intolerable 
immoralities. This point might soon 



34 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

be argued into a logical necessity, but 
unfortunately there is a shorter way to 
reach it — through the history of actual 
sins and sufferings. 

As a general rule, the champions of 
Infidelity have done what, in a better 
cause, would have been a virtue — 
their practice has agreed with their 
preaching; their doctrines have been 
illustrated in their lives. Exceptions 
to this statement are cheerfully admit- 
ted, but they are few, far too few to 
invalidate the morale of infidel biogra- 
phy. We may grant to Infidelity all 
the benefit of a case, like that of 
David Hume, in which an estimable 
life before the world accompanied an 
energetic infidel spirit, while the great 
host of examples illustrates the general 
certainty that infidel sentiments and 
profligate morals go hand in hand. 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 35 

Read what is known of the personal 
history of Voltaire, Rousseau, Vol- 
ney, Bolingbroke, Diderot, D'Alembert, 
Paine, Mary Wolstonecraft, or of almost 
any leading infidel lecturer of the pre- 
sent century, male or female ; and who 
among them all would be selected as a 
pattern of virtue, even in the light of 
the lowest system which preserves any 
hold on the name of morality ? Is one 
known among them, whose life was not 
odious, and are not the names of the 
most brilliant among them, synonyms 
for moral putrefaction ? 

These are not the times, nor is this 
the country, to see the true moral pro- 
clivities of Infidelity. The world has 
had few good opportunities to see it 
working freely in the harness. For rea- 
sons abundantly given on the preceding 
pages, it feels itself an object of public 



36 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

suspicion. Hence its advocates find 
it necessary to control themselves, 
and pay some respect at least to the 
exterior virtues of life. 

We have already alluded to what 
we must now notice at more length — 
the one memorable instance in which 
it sprung into power, and loosened 
itself from the restraints of public 
jealousy. A few pages back, we 
heard the testimony from its failure ; 
let us improve the only opportunity 
it has ever enjoyed to proclaim its own 
character from the field of triumph. 
The experiment was wide enough : 
the whole of a great empire was its 
field. It was not straitened in time, 
for it lasted until it had buried almost 
a whole generation. It stands alone 
in the world's history, but it was 
enough for the life-time of a world. It 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 37 

has left so enduring records, that no 
coming age will be uninformed of what 
the moral instincts of Infidelity are, 
or what it will do with human virtue 
when it is once enthroned. 

The reader, who has the slightest 
knowledge of modern history, recog- 
nizes in the above, a reference to the 
state of things in France, for several 
years preceding and following the 
opening of the present century, when 
the nation, morally, politically, and 
socially, was given up to Infidelity. 
It had wormed its way into the public 
heart, through the wiles of the Jacobin 
clubs, and the brilliant pages of some 
of the most accomplished writers of 
the da)'. The regicidal revolution 
placed it in political ascendency, and 
the National Assembly disowned all 
allegiance to religion, by a solemn de- 

4 



38 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF, 

cree which, in language and intent, 
dethroned God and made eternity a 
fable. So much for negation : what 
for positive devotion? A prostitute 
was brought out and deified, in the 
presence of an applauding multitude, 
as the representative of Reason. These 
be thy gods, Infidelity I 

This was the religion of the nation : 
now what were the morals? The 
romping career of the most infamous 
vices is without a parallel in the annals 
of time. Lewdness cast off shame, 
forsook the dark corners of cities, and 
walked unblushingly into the seats of 
honour. Treachery made even the 
name of friendship perilous. The 
sworn confederates of to-day betrayed 
each other to a blood-thirsty police to- 
morrow. Men lost confidence in the 
truth and fidelity of their most intimate 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 39 

associates. Violence rivalled lust in 
atrociousness, and private assassination 
and self-murder vied with the guillo- 
tine in rolling a sea of blood over the 
realm. One third of the births regis- 
tered in the office of the Prefect of 
the Police, in Paris, were without the 
sanction of marriage, and nearly the 
same proportion of deaths were by pub- 
lic executions, private assassinations, 
or suicide. The best computation 
reckons not less than three millions 
of human beings out of that nation, 
swept violently into their graves, in 
the short space of ten years. A gra- 
phic writer,* speaking while these 
things were yet fresh, says — "The 
kingdom appeared to be changed into 
one great prison; the inhabitants con- 
verted into felons; and the common 

* The late President D wight. 



40 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

doom of man commuted for the violence 
of the sword and the bayonet, the 
sucking boat and the guillotine. To con- 
templative men, it seemed for a season 
as if the knell of the whole nation 
was tolled, and the world summoned 
to its execution and its funeral/' 

The nation was at last fain to accept 
the return of an intolerant hierarchy, 
which was little better than a counter- 
feit of Christianity, as a refuge from 
the unendurable scourge of utter ir- 
religion. Infidelity, exhausted and 
terrified by its own enormities, made 
scarcely a show of resistance to the 
restoration of Romish ecclesiasticism. 

It is too late to ask for proof that 
this was Infidelity exposing itself 
under every advantage for appearing 
in its true temper. Its agency in the 
moral atrocities following the revolu- 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 41 

tion, is unquestionable. The ante- 
revolutionary infidels of the French 
school made no scruple of ridiculing 
what we understand by morality. 
Loosening themselves from all the re- 
vealed laws of heaven, they only 
pushed their principles to the point of 
consistency, when they disowned any 
higher law than sensual gratification, 
or any stronger obligation than obe- 
dience to physical compulsion.* 

* We are indebted to the writer last quoted, Dr. 
Dwight, who always took his observations carefully, 
and made his statements cautiously, for the following 
incident, which occurred a short time previous to the 
revolution, and for the truth of which, he regards 
his authority as good. " A numerous assembly of 
French Literati, being asked in turn, at one of their 
meetings, by their president, whether there was any 
such thing as moral obligation, answered, in every in- 
stance, that there was not." English infidels, though 

speaking under stronger restraints, have not always 
4* 



42 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

The influence of Infidelity in the 
political crimes which stained the 
movement, which might otherwise have 
been a noble stroke for human liberty, 
is scarcely less obvious. Disclosures 
made, and proofs collected, by eotem- 
poraneous writers, such as Robison 
and the Abb6 Barruel, have revealed 
the fundamental principle of the Jaco- 
bin club — ruin to altars and thrones. 
The blending of these two objects 
exposes their meaning as a whole. 
The thing aimed at is, independence 
of outward control; the means of accom- 
plishment are, the destruction of reli- 
gion and government. The effort, 

been able to conceal this doctrine, so dangerous to 
the virtue and peace of the wo r ld. Hobbes, for exam- 
ple, declares it lawful to do and get whatever we can, 
with safety. 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 43 

when successful, can have but one real- 
ization — corruption and anarchy. All 
our reasonings from the nature of the 
case, make it probable: experiment 
has reduced it to a certainty. 

Thus we have listened to the wit- 
ness of Infidelity, as spoken from its 
own history. We have heard the 
confession of its inability, after ages 
of effort, to overcome the detestation 
of mankind toward itself; and it has 
told us what corruption and misery 
might be expected from its universal 
triumph. We now transfer the wit- 
ness to another field — the one where 
it most plumes itself. 

INFIDELITY IN THE PRESENCE OF REASON 

Sparing the reader from a ramble 
over philosophy at large, we shall se- 



44 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

lect the pertinent points for inquiry. 
Have those who have laboured only in 
the field of reason, given any counten- 
ance to Infidelity? On the contrary, 
has not rational philosophy always ab- 
horred it; and have not the discoveries 
of that philosophy always indicated the 
necessity for such a communion be- 
tween heaven and earth, as is only 
realized in the Christian system re- 
vealed in our holy Scriptures? 

Here we must refresh the reader's 
memory concerning the terms in which 
we have defined the Infidelity of which 
we speak, especially that part of the 
description which gives to it the posi- 
tive character of a voluntary abandon- 
ment of religion, and opposition to it 
— a deliberate choice of irreligion in- 
stead of religion. It now becomes 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 45 

essential to keep this definition in 
mind. 

The infidel is generally loud in his 
boast of being the disciple of nature 
and reason. But the question, what 
nature and reason do teach on the sub- 
ject, is soonest settled by a reference 
to facts. We must look among those 
who have been deprived of superior 
means of knowledge, and left to intu- 
ition, nature, and reason alone. If, 
upon any point concerning religion, 
these people have all spoken with one 
voice ; if, under all their grades of cul- 
tivation, barbarous or civilized, igno- 
rant or learned, and through all their 
various systems, from the lowest idol- 
atry to the highest philosophy, they 
have proclaimed for a religion in oppo- 
sition to irreligion, and have always 
sought out for themselves something 



46 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

which should be to them religion ; then 
we have the highest proof which the 
nature of the case admits, that there 
is, in the human breast, an inborn 
yearning for religion. The form in 
which this point is often stated is, that 
man is naturally a religious being. If this 
be true, the conclusion is unavoidable, 
that Infidelity outrages the human rea- 
son and conscience. 

It will be understood that the term, 
"religion" is not here used in its restrict- 
ed sense, as denoting saving grace in the 
heart, but as descriptive of all intended 
acknowledgment and worship of su- 
perior beings, in distinction from total 
irreligion. It is the sense in which 
Paul employed the word, when he said 
to the Athenians, while pointing to 
their heathen altars — " I perceive that 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 47 

in all things, ye are exceedingly reli- 
gious" * 

The testimony of the world upon 
this point is unequivocal. There is 
no exception to it, but that which 
comes from the form of Infidelity now 
under review — an exception which we 
expect to find, in the sequel, confirming 
instead of weakening the point before 
us. That one exception passed, the 
whole world has proclaimed religion to 
be a necessity of our moral nature. 

A religious instinct certainly seems 
to lie at the basis of heathen idolatry. 
Men, without the better light of revel- 
ation, still felt a consciousness of some 
relation to a superior power, which made 
worship a duty. Their minds were 
too feeble to scale the conception of an 

* Acts xvii. 22. In our translation, unhappily ren- 
dered, " too superstitious." 



48 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

object of worship dwelling for ever in 
the mysterious unknown, and so they 
made gods for themselves. They dei- 
fied heroes, worshipped the noblest 
visible objects: as, sun, moon, stars, 
fire ; or with their descending civiliza- 
tion, went down to the deification of 
beasts, reptiles, stocks, and stones. 
But low as idolatry has sunk, the con- 
sciousness of religion, as a moral neces- 
sity, has ever abode by it, as a redeem- 
ing feature, and an anchor of hope for 
a coming morning to the night of hea- 
thenism. 

If the historical assertions which 
we have made, should be anywhere 
controverted, the issue would probably 
be taken, not on pagan ground, but in 
the field of ancient philosophy. We 
shall not deny that in the dawn of 
Grecian philosophy, when the popular 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 49 

deities — the gods of whom Homer 
sung — were repudiated as unworthy 
of the reverence of the wise, and be- 
fore philosophy had wrought out the 
problem of a Supreme Power and In- 
telligence, doctrines were inculcated 
which, from our present stand-point, 
seem to reveal atheistic assimilations. 
It is too true that Thales, Pythagoras, 
and others among the earliest Grecian 
masters, left God out of their systems. 
Had everything stopped with them, 
philosophy would have remained with- 
out a Theism. All this may be granted 
without disturbing our position. 

Still these men afford no counten- 
ance to the infidel under Christian 
light. Their search was for creating 
energy, and for the vitalizing principle 
of things. Turning from Polytheism, 
they took up with a kind of Panthe- 

5 



50 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

ism, which was their nearest point to- 
wards Infidelity. It was serious in its 
tone, looking anxiously for higher 
light, and ever moving away from ir- 
religion. The doctrine of chance was 
never so much as suggested. From 
the first, the effort of the philosophers 
was to search out the eternal principle 
of working, which they saw so abund- 
antly developed in the visible creation, 
and to discover the relation of the seen 
to the mysterious unseen — of the tran- 
sient to the permanent. The first as- 
pirations of philosophy were heaven- 
ward. Its earliest inquiries for animat- 
ing principles and causative energy 
were the earnest commencement of a 
reasoning process, which could not and 
did not rest until Glod was enthroned, 
and his creatures were bound to him, 
at least in the obligation of reverence* 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 51 

In asking whether the wisdom of 
that age sustains the point that the reli- 
gious instinct is universal in men, we 
are not so much concerned about the 
personal feelings of certain philoso- 
phers toward religion, but we are to in- 
quire of their systems, what were the 
wants, out of which their inquiries 
started, and what were the aspirations 
of those systems. No one can study 
even the crude notions of the ear- 
liest schools, without feeling that they 
were groaning under the want of some- 
thing better than Mythology, to bring 
the created into communion with the 
Creator, and that the great labour of 
philosophy w T as & feeling after God. 

We must remember the darkness 
from which they emerged. They start- 
ed from Polytheism ; they had imbibed 
their views of Divinity from that, and 



52 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

of course those views were low. The 
gods of their people were vicious, 
treacherous, lustful, and revengeful; 
deified men and women who, in their 
apotheosis, had parted with none of 
their terrestrial corruption. They were 
gods whose bones were scattered about 
the world. It was the boast of the 
island of Crete, that it contained the 
tomb of Jupiter, the father of gods and 
men. Is it then surprising that the first 
philosophers, in their eager search for 
something that should sustain to them- 
selves and the world, the relation of 
first cause and animating principle, 
never thought of a god as befitting the 
void which they sought to fill? Are 
we to conclude, from this natural mis- 
take of theirs, that there was not a 
deep religious element in their system 
— the germ of a religious growth, which 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 53 

must eventually develope itself in 
God ? If, for a time, we fail to find phi- 
losophy a fully developed religion, are 
we to jump to the conclusion that its 
tendency was not in that direction? 

Apply such conclusions to the strict- 
ly scientific features of the system, and 
we can all see the absurdity of the 
judgment. For example, Thales held 
the world to be an animal, with water 
for its soul; he argued that the loadstone 
must possess a soul, because it has 
power to stir iron. Do we conclude 
from this, that his system contained the 
germ of no higher advances in science ? 
So far otherwise, we behold, through 
an absurdity, over which a school-boy 
of this day would laugh, the great 
principle of causation and life-energy 
struggling to reveal itself. It was 

a first looking toward the sublime, 
5* 



54 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

though still illusory discovery of Plato's 
world of Eternal Archetypes. 

So with the religious element. The 
first doctrines of Grecian philosophy, 
with all their negative godlessness, 
contained the germ of an extensive reli- 
gious inquiry, and deep religious con- 
viction. It developed itself with in- 
creasing distinctness, as the subject 
passed from teacher to teacher, until it 
culminated in the one Supreme Divin- 
ity of Socrates and Plato — a gleam of 
Jehovah, seen through the mist of the 
wisdom of this world, but too shadowy 
to give a definite notion of what the 
god of the Athenian Academy really 
was. It was however sufficient to re- 
veal the fact, that philosophy could 
not rest, until it had given to the world 
an object of worship, and established 
a connection between time and eternity 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 55 

— between the creature and his God. 
It settled the point that irreligion is the 
abomination of philosophy . 

And yet philosophy reached its lof- 
tiest achievment, only to reveal a still 
deeper religious want. The mind, 
once lifted up to the true existence of 
a God, becomes a prey to an intense 
longing for some sensible communion 
with him — some coming of God to us 
in appreciable manifestations — some- 
thing that can be felt as a participation 
of the Divine nature. 

The religion of Polytheism confesses 
to this want, and proposes to supply it 
with gods of our own moral nature, 
like us in grossness and perverseness. 
We need not dwell upon the unfitness 
of the resort. Too vile to be accepted 
as a supply, that worship is nevertheless 
a symptom of this universal craving for 



56 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

perceptible sympathy between God and 
men. 

Philosophy, by ennobling God, ex- 
cites this longing to the point of inten- 
sity, but it despairs of providing for it. 
Plato may talk of our apparent exist- 
ence as only a transient outward mani- 
festation of an eternal Divine "Idea/ 7 
which is soon to reabsorb us ; we obtain 
from the thought no sense of commu- 
nion; we have no feeling of being 
brought nearer to God. The excel- 
lencies of the Socratic Divinity are 
abstract, and irrelative to our condition. 
As God he is as much — we will not say 
too high — but too far out of our reach, 
as the Jove or Aphrodite of Homer is 
beneath what we need. 

In their conceptions of God, men, 
without the Bible, have never found 
a medium between the extremes of 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 57 

gross familiarity with human nature, 
on the one hand, and an awful dread- 
inspiring mysteriousness, on the other. 
When left to this darkness, the world 
has cried earnestly, though vainly, for 
something to bridge the abyss between 
the human and the Divine. The earn- 
est expectation of the creature has 
waited for just that coming forth of 
God from the darkness of the unknown, 
into actual sympathy with his crea- 
tures, which is only realized in the 
system revealed in our holy Scriptures. 
Unconsciously, but none the less truly, 
it has longed for the Incarnation — 
for Immanuel, God with us; living, 
walking, speaking, and suffering with 
us ; giving us palpable knowledge of his 
fellow feeling, yet in such a way as to 
leave the impression that, so far from 
compromising the purity or dignity 



58 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF, 

of his nature, he has met us in our na- 
tures, only to raise us to his own. 

Such is the call of reason and 
humanity for religion. Standing forth, 
the sole exception to this moral sense 
of the world, Infidelity proclaims itself 
a crime against nature. In the world 
of reason, it is a prodigy which could 
never have been expected — -which, 
from all a priori reasoning, would have 
been pronounced an impossibility. 

Had it been told us that, w 7 hen our 
holy Scriptures should be offered to 
the Hindoo, he would reject them 5 
and abide by his Vedas, or that the 
Mahommedan would refuse to exchange 
his Koran for them, we should not 
have regarded the result as improba- 
ble. Our knowledge of the attach- 
ment of men to early and long-cherished 
views and customs, would lead us to 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 59 

expect some demur against a change. 
And in our estimate of the probabilities 
in the case, we should attach great 
importance to the consideration that 
the religious system which they were 
asked to abandon, deeply inferior as it 
is, still provides something for the reli- 
gious element which is strong in every 
human constitution. Such men, in re- 
jecting the Bible, do not absolutely 
repudiate those religious instincts which 
are interwoven in the manly, as dis- 
tinguished from the brutish nature. 
They do not leap into an abyss where 
all is void godlessness. 

More than this : had it been said that 
some who were speculative believers 
in our sacred writings, would abandon 
them, to accept the Vedas or the Shas- 
ter in their place, as the word of God, 
improbable as the event might have 



60 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

appeared, we should not have regarded 
it so outrageous to nature as to defy 
belief. It would be such a diversion 
of the moral vision from luminous to 
absurd theologies, and so deep a 
descent from the spiritual to the carnal, 
as to betray a mournfully diseased con- 
dition of the moral nature ; still an object 
would be left for the grasp of those in- 
born yearnings of humanity which cry 
out for religion. 

Or suppose the Bible to have come 
under the notice of Socrates or Plato. 
They were men of strong religious 
aspirations, but, unlike the Hindoo, 
they were without a scrap of writing 
which claimed the character of a Divine 
revelation. Theirs was simply the re- 
ligion of philosophy, but it strove 
earnestly to penetrate the eternal mys- 
teries which lie beyond sensual vision. 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 61 

We should look, with great interest, 
for the result, when they were brought 
within reach of a direct revelation 
from God, which, at once, answered 
their most anxious inquiries for truth. 
Perhaps, from our knowledge of the 
Bible, as supplying the great want 
under which their philosophy groaned, 
we should hopefully await their deci- 
sion. 

Still we should not regard a predic- 
tion that Socrates or Plato would re- 
ject the Bible, as out of the range of 
probability. The refusal of their faith 
to it would form no parallel to the In- 
fidelity before us. They began their 
religious inquiries in the school of phi- 
losophy. In the case supposed, the 
existence of a written revelation from 
God was a thing unknown and unex- 
pected, until the hour when it was laid 



62 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

before them. They had never been 
consciously indebted to it for one reli- 
gious idea : it had not exerted a sensible 
influence over a single conclusion of 
their minds. * With philosophy as 
their guide, they were on the moral 
ascent, hopeless of the attainment, it 
is true, but still rising toward truth. 
If they should reject the aid of Divine 
Revelation, it would probably be the 
result of a resolute attachment to their 
installed teacher, philosophy. It would 
not betray in them, under their circum- 
stances, any relaxing of the bonds of 
religion, or any weakening of the reli- 
gious element within them. It would 
indeed be the loss of an all-sufficient 

* This mode of expression is purposely conformed 
to the hypothesis, that some gleamings from remote 
revelations might have remained unquenched in the 
night of heathenism. 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 63 

means of the very knowledge after 
which they were reaching, and thus 
the act would be an irreparable error. 
But it would not be a deliberate back- 
ward step from light to darkness, nor 
would it be stamped with the infernal 
mark of apostasy. Still they might 
push on their researches after the Eter- 
nal, and still pursue their labours to 
exalt humanity nearer to God. 

The Infidelity which we are contem- 
plating, differs from all this. And it 
is a difference which does not consist 
in degree merely : it is elementary. 
The Pagan, or the Socratic philosopher, 
may reject our Bible, without such an 
inroad upon the ground-work of human 
nature, as brings organic destruction to 
the moral sense, as it came from the 
hand of God. The Infidelity which is 
propagated in Christian lands, is radi- 



64 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF, 

cal in its destructiveness, revolutioniz- 
ing the entire moral being. In this 
respect, it stands alone in the world, a 
moral prodigy, unaccountable except 
on the reason which we shall presently 
assign for it. 

It is a fact full of significance, one 
which alone would be almost decisive 
in the present argument, that there is 
no record of the existence of an intelli- 
gent human being who renounced all 
religion, at any time when, or in any 
land where, the influence of our holy 
Scriptures was unfelt. We believe time 
and the world may be searched in vain, 
for a single exception to the truth of 
this statement. We may find, among 
people who have never been brought 
into familiarity with the heavenly gift, 
and the powers of the world to come, 
the grossest absurdities in relation to 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 65 

religion; we may find Polytheism, idol- 
atries that are loathsome, and rites 
which violate decency, and shock our 
compassions; but slimy as is the wad- 
ing through the records of heathenism, 
there is even there no corruption so 
foul, and no descent so low, as the de- 
liberate wilful abandonment of reli- 
gion.* 

* In the foregoing references to ancient philosophy, 
we have not thought it necessary to bring the later 
schools of Kome and Alexandria into the account. 
They would not vary the result. It is true, their gen- 
eral tone was less serious, and sometimes scornful to« 
ward certain heathen religious systems. But the reli- 
gious element was often brought into the foreground 
of their teachings, and almost always respected. We 
are not aware that it was ever derided, or even ignored, 
until we come down to the times when the philoso- 
phers, as in the case of Lucian and Porphyry, were 
brought into the presence of Christianity, and made 

to feel its power in antagonism with their systems. 
6* 



68 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

Passing from the faith of the Chris- 
tian, to the unbelief of the heathen in 
the holy Scriptures, we pass, it is true, 
from a consistent and well-compacted 
scheme of moral accountability; from 
the record of a long and beautiful ad- 
ministration of a holy government; 
from a system of redemption which is 
full and finished, glowing in the bright- 
ness of eternal wisdom, and reposing 
in the softer lights of eternal love : we 
pass from these, into regions of myths 
and theological chaos, or into dark and 
cold speculations which are powerless 
to supply the moral necessities which 
they reveal. Still however we find 
ourselves among systems where the re- 
ligious element is assiduously culti- 
vated. But passing from our Christ- 
ian churches, to the schools of Shaftes- 
bury or Voltaire, or to the so-called 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 67 

"Halls of Science" and "Free Inquiry 
Associations" of our American cities, 
we take the wide leap from religion to 
irreligion. We join ourselves to those 
who would eradicate every religious 
instinct from our natures, and cut every 
fastening which binds the present to 
the future, or man to his Maker. We 
go where all this is done, not incident- 
ally or inferentially, but expressly and 
with a will. 

Could we become oblivious of all 
which we now know of the existence 
and power of the Bible, and of what has 
occurred in Christian lands, under its 
influence, and thus oblivious, look out 
from the stand-point of natural reason 
alone, we should unhesitatingly pro- 
nounce this an impossible state of mind. 
We should say that human nature can- 
not be brought to it. All the experi- 



68 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

ence of men would forbid it. A funda- 
mental law of the human mind would 
forbid it. 

But returning to the land of Chris- 
tian influences, we do see it. How 
shall we account for it? We must 
look outside of natural causes. For 
the solution of this great moral wonder, 
Infidelity must come, at last, before 
the light of Divine Revelation, and 
once more speak for itself. 

INFIDELITY IN THE PRESENCE OF THE 
HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

We shall not burden the examination 
with quotations from the Bible. A 
limited number will stand as examples 
of many which might be cited, descrip- 
tive of Infidelity, and — what is espe- 
cially in point — accounting for its ex- 
istence. The logical reader will see 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 69 

the purpose for which they are intro- 
duced; not as begging the question, or 
assuming their inspiration while they 
are offered in proof of such inspiration; 
but to show that we can account for 
the phenomena which they teach us to 
expect, only on the presumption of 
their Divine inspiration. 

There will be no objection to our 
assuming the historical fact that the 
narratives, given by the four evangel- 
ists, as contained in our holy Scrip- 
tures, are a cotemporaneous record of 
the sayings and doings, life and death, 
of a person, known as Jesus, who about 
eighteen centuries ago, appeared among 
men, claiming to be the Christ from hea- 
ven. Apart from the question of 
inspiration, the chain of evidence which 
authenticates these events, is so perfect, 
that they cannot be denied, except 



70 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

upon principles which would destroy 
all our faith in human history. 

We may then say that it is now 
nearly two thousand years, since Jesus 
publicly announced the influence which 
his coming, preaching, life, and death, 
would have upon the hearts of men. 
" For judgment," said he, "I am come 
into this world, that they which see 
not, might see; and that they which 
see, might be made blind." John ix. 
39. 

No laboured explanation of these 
terms is necessary. A moderate ac- 
quaintance with the style of description 
common in the sacred writings, is suffi- 
cient to enable us to define them. 
The words, "which see not," manifestly 
refer to those who are humble, distrust- 
ful of their own wisdom, docile, and 
otherwise in a frame of mind to wel- 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 71 

come light from above. They "which 
see," are plainly those who, in all these 
respects, are the opposite of the last. 
Their confidence in their own know- 
ledge, wisdom, and opinions, is too ex- 
alted to allow them to accept any 
instruction from heaven. 

The narrative which precedes the 
quotation before us, affords an illustra- 
tion of the latter class, in the persons 
of their then living prototypes. We 
there see the whole process of Infidel- 
ity worked out, first to obstinate unbe- 
lief, and then to malignant opposition. 
The Pharisees, after a long examina- 
tion of a man, whom Jesus had mirac- 
ulously cured of a blindness in which he 
was born, which ended in overwhelming 
proof of the reality of the miracle, final- 
ly ordered him to disown the power of 
Jesus in the matter. He met the de- 



72 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

inand with a few words of manly ap- 
peal to their reason, challenging their 
common sense to answer whether such 
a proof of the indwelling power of God 
was to pass for nothing. Their reply 
was an example of the last argument 
of haughty and bitter opposition to 
Christ, the world over — denunciation, 
and scorn of instruction. As much as 
to say — we know it all, and we are 
not to be taught, even by a miracle 
from heaven. 

This was wilful unbelief, sought and 
cultivated, existing in the face of the 
highest evidence, and manifestly ex- 
cited by an unconquerable hostility to 
Christ, in his proposed character of 
Redeemer of men. It was Pharisaism 
then, but waiting only for its divorce 
from Judaism, to become the Infidelity 
of the Christian ages. 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 73 

With such a case before him, Jesus 
pronounced Infidelity a Divine infliction. 
This blinding of those " which see," 
was to be a judgment which his coming 
should work in the world. If men 
would deliberately reject the evidences 
of Divinity, with which his gospel 
clothed itself; if they would do worse 
— would meet that gospel with a fore- 
gone purpose to disbelieve it, they 
should experience a darkening, instead 
of enlightening influence from the hea- 
venly light. Meeting the gospel in that 
spirit, they could not simply remain 
unenlightened; they must sink to 
deeper ignorance, from hour to hour. 

The judicial character of this blind- 
ness is still more fully brought out, in 
another prediction of the New Testa- 
ment, bearing upon strongly aggra- 
vated cases of opposition to the gospel. 



74 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

"For this cause, [i e. not receiving 
the love of the truth— in other words, 
hating it,] God shall send them strong 
delusion, that they should believe a lie : 
that they all might be damned who be- 
lieve not the truth, but had pleasure 
in unrighteousness." 2 Thessalonians 
ii. 11, 12. This delusion differs from 
the common unbelief of sinners, in the 
important and fearful particular already 
named. It is rendered more awful 
and generally hopeless, by containing 
this additional element of wrath, that 
it is a blindness in which God, by an 
act of holy judgment, confirms the 
soul. 

Among all the lights in which a set- 
tled unbelief of the gospel can be 
viewed, there is no other so terrible as 
this. It is as if God said to the 
sinner who had adopted the resolute 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 75 

purpose not to be convinced — "I met 
you, in your ignorance, and brought 
you instruction from the eternal fount- 
ain of truth. I found you striving to 
guide the vessel, laden with your 
immortal destinies, by the false lights 
of human wisdom, which were luring 
you into fatal currents, soon to dash 
among destructive rocks, and from the 
shore of heaven, I hung out the lamp 
of Divine Revelation, warning you 
what to shun, and where to lay your 
course. When you were slow to believe 
the heavenly illumination, I bore w 7 ith 
your infirm reason, overwhelming the 
field of inquiry with evidence that the 
gospel offered you was indeed the 
light of God. I did more. After hav- 
ing given Christ to become the Re- 
deemer of sinners, I advanced from 
your reason to your heart, with pre- 



76 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

cious influences from the cross, to win 
your acceptance of mercy. I drew 
nearer and nearer, imparting to those 
influences more tenderness as they ap- 
proached closer, until it became fully 
demonstrated that you nourished such 
a settled, invincible repugnance to the 
gospel, as led you to wish and resolve 
to abide in unbelief. Now, after hav- 
ing yourself passed the boundary of 
mercy, the hour of just and holy judg- 
ment has come. You would not believe ; 
now, in judicial wrath, I withdraw 
from you the power of belief. You 
would be deluded; now you shall have 
strong delusion. From henceforth, the 
lights of conscience and revelation 
shall cease to stand between you and 
destruction." 

Another prediction— only contingent 
it is true, but still pertinent when we 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 77 

see it reduced to reality — presents an 
additional feature, which we may expect 
to see more strikingly exemplified in 
those who fall from a Christian profes- 
sion, into the embrace of Infidelity. 
This feature is a mad opposition, added 
to an abandonment of the gospel. The 
apostate not only removes himself from 
the field of hope, but he becomes the 
bitter adversary of the Bible. The 
passage to which we refer, says that 
"if we sin wilfully, after that we 
have received the knowledge of the 
truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice 
for sins, but a certain fearful looking 
for of judgment and fiery indignation 
which shall devour the adversaries." 
Hebrews x. 26, 27. This scripture is 
only quoted as defining the spirit 
which we are taught to expect as the 

sign of apostasy from the Christian 

7* 



78 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

system to Infidelity. Such apostates 
will not stop at the point of giving up 
their faith in the word of God. We 
are taught to expect that we shall meet 
them in the character of adversaries. 

Add to these predictions, one of the 
reasons which the holy Scriptures as- 
sign for this revolt from themselves. 
The Bible is offered as the standing 
testimony against sin, and the con- 
demning judge of all who will not 
conform to the holy morals of heaven. 
When it is accepted as the authorized 
revelation of the will of God, then the 
principles and morals of religion have 
an abiding witness. It then becomes 
the test to which all human conduct 
can be forced. There the wrong-doer 
reads his own condemnation. To sen- 
suality, lechery, falsehood, fraud, avar- 
ice, inhumanity, malevolence, soul- 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 79 

vampires all, it is the rising sun, 
before which they fly screaming in 
search of moral darkness. Those who 
are resolved to sin, wish for the annoy- 
ance of no such incessant voice of re- 
proof. But they can shield their con- 
sciences from it, only by some violent 
process, which, by benumbing the 
moral sensibilities, renders the heart 
inaccessible to the heavenly warning. 

So one of the inspiring motives to 
Infidelity is thus stated : " This is the 
condemnation, that light is come into 
the world, and men loved darkness 
rather than light, because their deeds 
were evil. For every one that doeth 
evil, hateth the light, neither cometh 
to the light, lest his deeds should be 
reproved." John iii. 19, 20. Men wish 
to sin, but they recoil from enduring 
reproof, either from their consciences 



80 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

or from a virtuous community. If they 
can destroy their own faith in the Bi- 
ble, they remove the most powerful 
exciting agent from conscience. If 
they can destroy the public faith, sin 
will cease to expose them to the 
reproach of those among whom they 
live. Infidelity is the chosen agent 
for relieving them from all moral 
restraints. 

Carry a lighted lamp into the mid- 
night den of a felon, surrounded by the 
instruments and evidences of his guilt, 
and his first impulse will be to escape 
the light. Follow him up with it, and 
his next, his desperate effort will be to 
extinguish it. If he can do this sea- 
sonably, he may yet have the protection 
of darkness in his controversy with 
the law. So Infidelity generally pro- 
gresses from personal unbelief to active 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 81 

opposition — from an attempt to escape 
personally from the influence of truth, 
to an effort to destroy its influence in 
the world. The former achievment 
might help a man to sin without re- 
morse; only the latter — putting out 
the light — will enable him to do it 
without shame. A patient examination 
of the histories already reviewed will 
show that the animus of this effort is 
correctly stated—" lest his deeds should 
be reproved." 

We have given a few examples of 
the predictions of our holy Scriptures, 
bearing upon the Infidelity now under 
review. They are clear, pointing out a 
class of people with so much precision, 
that we cannot fail to identify them 
when we behold them. We are taught to 
look for unbelievers who possess strik- 
ing characteristics, distinguishing them 



82 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

from common sinners, and whose infi- 
delity is unlike that of the Mahomme- 
dan or Buddhist, who rejects Christian- 
ity to abide in another religious system. 
We are taught to expect the appearance 
of men, whose error is clearly traceable 
to the approach of the highest know- 
ledge in the universe, whose lack of 
faith carries every mark of inveterate 
obstinacy, and whose bitterest animos- 
ity against the truth is excited by 
those features of it which should ren- 
der it most acceptable to the sinner. 
They are to be "men of corrupt minds, 
reprobate concerning the faith." 2 Tim, 
iii. 8. They are to "deny the Lord 
that bought them." 2 Peter ii. 1. 
They are to "tread under foot the Son 
of God, count the blood of the covenant 
wherewith he was sanctified an unholy 
thing, and do despite to the Spirit of 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 83 

grace." Heb. x. 29. We are led to 
expect a desperation of rage against 
Christ, proportionate to the loftiness 
of their former standing on the Christ- 
ian system. The name "Adversaries " 
is applied to some with peculiar empha- 
sis. The spirit which that name speaks, 
is satanic. Satan is emphatically the 
Adversary. 1 Peter v. 8. So it is inti- 
mated that we shall find those that are 
eminently adversaries, in the persons 
of such as have sinned wilfully, after 
having received the knowledge of the 
truth. 

The argument for the Divine inspir- 
ation of the holy Scriptures, which is 
derived from the fulfilment of prophe- 
cies, comes incidentally, but strongly, 
forward here. 

When it is shown that events were 
predicted thousands of years before 



84 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

their occurrence; that these events 
were too improbable to permit the sup- 
position that their prediction was guess 
work ; that in truth they were, in their 
details as well as their general character, 
contrary to all human experience, and 
opposed to all the probabilities of hu- 
man conduct ; that still men and things 
were so turned from their ordinary 
bent that everything took place in ex- 
act accordance with the prediction, 
then we insist that the coming forth 
of the result is an evidence that the 
prophecy originated in the omniscient 
mind of a Being, who also possesses 
omnipotent energy for accomplishment. 

We place such passages as we have 
quoted— especially those in which judi- 
cial blindness is so distinctly brought 
out — in the catalogue of remarkable 
predictions, which have been remarka- 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 85 

bly fulfilled in all the ages since. We 
have contemplated Infidelity as a crime 
against nature, a moral prodigy, with- 
out an existence until it arose in spe- 
cial opposition to the gospel, and so 
foreign even to the worst moral expe- 
riences of the previous ages, that no 
rational expectation of its existence 
could have been formed. As we have 
already said, could we become oblivious 
of our present knowledge of its exist- 
ence, and transfer ourselves to the 
stand-point from which the holy Scrip- 
tures spoke, we should pronounce the 
state of mind there described, a moral 
impossibility. We should regard the 
modern infidel as an anomaly — a moral 
miracle. 

But we do see this anomaly, just 
as those holy Scriptures, in the face of 
the whole moral history of the world, 



86 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

predicted that we should behold it. 
We see so many of its characteristics, 
and so much of its moral likeness, that 
we unhesitatingly identify it as the 
object of those predictions — the won- 
derful fulfilment of a prophecy, too 
deep for any mind below God's. His 
Spirit taught us that when we should 
behold the fulfilling of such wonders, 
we must believe. The infidel comes 
unasked into the field, and even ob- 
trudes his testimony upon us, that in 
his own person they are fulfilled. 

But in the presence of the holy 
Scriptures, the witness of Infidelity 
against itself, is chiefly decisive in the 
exhibition which it affords of the power 
of God, through the word, on a re- 
probate heart. The Christian gospel 
claims for itself, that where it is not 
accepted as a savour of life unto life, 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 87 

its power must be felt as a savour of 
death unto death. 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16. 
We have exhibited the origin and 
character of that most fearful condition 
of the moral faculties, which is known 
as a judicial blindness; and when we 
meet with a type of unbelief which 
perfectly answers to it, then we see the 
power of God in his awful judgment. 
When we find the word, which is the 
exciting medium for this state of feel- 
ing, we recognize the power of God 
there indwelling. 

We look on the infidel, and see it all. 
Before him lies an open Bible. What- 
ever may be said concerning its Divine 
inspiration, it is beyond question cal- 
culated, in its whole character and 
spirit, to win the regard of all who 
delight in human happiness. Its pre- 
cepts enjoin just the virtues which 



88 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

administer to the tranquillity, joy, and 
prosperity of society. Its laws are 
just, and its morals are pure. It 
guards holiness, and lays sin, including 
all human cruelties and wrongs, under 
the ban of heaven. Its loftiest princi- 
ples relate to the wants of sinners, 
providing pardon, and opening the way 
to holiness and happiness. It comes, 
loaded with goodness for a wicked 
world, and comfort for an anguished 
heart. Its leaves bring healing to the 
nations. 

This is the Bible that goads the 
infidel to madness. His hostility be- 
comes more intense, as he approaches 
the loveliest matter of Divine Revela- 
tion, that central beaming glory of the 
gospel, the provision made for sinners 
in the death of Christ. The shafts 
of infidel scorn and blasphemy fly 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 89 

thickest around the cross. Writers 
and lecturers seem most exultant, 
when they imagine they are detecting 
some absurdity in the evangel, or some 
defect in the statement of Christ's 
birth, life, death, or resurrection. They 
have bestowed on his earthly parentage, 
slanders too vile to repeat. They 
have sneered at Calvary, and taunted 
its dying victim. In Voltaire's secret 
correspondence with the anti-christian 
clubs of France and Germany, "The 
Wretch," is his synonym for our Sav- 
iour Jesus Christ. In a letter to his 
confederate, D'Alembert, complaining 
that he is obliged to chafe under a 
mask before the world, on account of 
the superstition of men, he says that 
he would much prefer to " wage open 
war with the Wretch, and die on a 



8 ; 



90 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

heap of Christians, immolated at his 
feet." 

The gospel accounts for all this. We 
have seen some of the numerous pre- 
dictions in point; such, for example, as 
that the same influence which, to the 
submissive, is a savour of life unto life, 
will be, to the rebellious, a savour of 
death unto death. Those truths which 
relate more especially to the cross, 
strike deepest into human pride, soar 
most sublimely above mortal wisdom, 
reveal most of the wickedness of the 
human heart, exalt God highest, and 
sink the creature lowest. They pre- 
sent the believer most unblemished in 
the final judgment, and make the same 
judgment most terrible to the unbe- 
liever. Hence, while among all parts 
of the Bible, those which have the 
nearest connection with the cross, 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 91 

bring most delight to the obedient, 
that cross becomes the hardest rock of 
offence to those who revolt from its 
mercy. 

" The vital savour of his name 
Eestores our fainting breath ; 
But unbelief perverts the same 
To guilt, despair, and death." 

This power, through the word, has 
its strongest manifestation in those 
who have apostatized, from the profes- 
sion of a Christian faith, to Infidelity. 
There we generally find a sublimated 
spirit of opposition to the Bible. In 
this country, a large portion of the pub- 
lic infidel lecturers belong to this 
class. Some of them have enjoyed 
the charity of the church, and occupied 
Christian pulpits. They often boast 
of their descending experience, and 
parade their apostasy before their 



92 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

audiences, to give zest to the perform- 
ance. 

The enmity of such people to the 
gospel is intense and satanic. Their 
opposition is sleepless, their denuncia- 
tions bitter to the last extreme, and 
their language not unfrequently blas- 
phemous. If they are lost sight of for 
a time, seasons of a religious revival 
bring them again to the surface, as the 
viper is warmed into life by the sun. 
Then they may be known by their 
efforts to raise a counter excitement, 
calling assemblies together, sending 
out challenges for debate, and omitting 
no occasion to strike at the gospel. 
Body, soul, spirit, all which constitutes 
their being, is absorbed in the ceaseless 
war against Christ. These are the 
"Adversaries," who in the passage 
already quoted from the Epistle to the 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 93 

Hebrews, are said to sin wilfully, after 
having received the knowledge of the 
truth. If the reader will refer to the 
sequel of the passage, he can take 
his own solemn view of what remains 
for them. And well may he be alarmed 
for his own moral sensibilities, if he 
does not find it in his heart to say — 
u my soul, come not thou into their 
secret! unto their assembly, mine 
honour, be not thou united!" 

Such is the moral condition which 
we once more characterize as beyond 
nature. Throughout the records of 
time, we search for it in vain, until we 
come below the Christian era, and into 
the lands of Christian influences. Nat- 
ural cau^bs fail to account for it. It is 
an impenetrable mystery, until we ac- 
cept the solution of the problem which 
the holy Scriptures offer. 



94 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

In the presence of those Scriptures, 
Infidelity proclaims itself the revolt of 
a proud and bad heart, from the purity 
and denunciations of the Divine law, 
from the conditions of pardon, and 
from the administration of God, as it is 
read in the living light of heaven. It 
is antagonism to Christ, and resistance 
to the gracious influence which God 
employs on human hearts. But it has 
a worse tale for itself than this, and 
herein is its testimony to the Divine 
energy in the gospel. When matured, 
it is God's holy judgment upon the 
soul, leaving it to fill up its measure 
of iniquity, and inflicting upon it the 
strong delusions which it seeks. Why 
enlarge? We have seen what it is. 
The Scriptures which predict the in- 
fliction of judicial blindness, afford 
the only rational account of its origin. 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 95 

It is the weight of the Divine power 
in the written word. The presence 
of that power involves the Divine in- 
spiration of the holy Scriptures. 

CONCLUSION. 

Thus we secure the witness of Infi- 
delity against itself. From its inner 
being, a voice is ever heard, proclaim- 
ing the falseness of all which comes 
from its lips. As long as a vestige of 
it abides in the world, it will be a 
monument of the power of God in the 
gospel, producing supernatural changes 
of mind, in the direction of ruin, as 
well as of heaven. The scars which it 
brings out from every battle, are indel- 
ible marks on the moral nature, show- 
ing for themselves that they are 
inflicted by the hand of God. It comes 
before the world with both hands 



96 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

loaded; one with the bane, and the 
other with the antidote. It is itself 
the answer to all its own arguments. Its 
boasting apostle is ever doomed to con- 
front himself. He is himself a living, 
moving, and acting testimony to the 
truth which his words deny. All this 
is so apparent that, in a world where 
there is enough impatience of mora! 
restraints, to give popularity to loose 
religious views, we have found Infidel- 
ity shamefully small in numerical im- 
portance, and still lower in influence. 
If we speak of the great peril of 
Christian nations from this source, it 
is not from any apprehension that Infi- 
delity, under its own name, will become 
very extensive. In our cities — ^possi- 
bly to some extent in the rural districts 
— the sewers of humanity will empty 
somewhat of their flow into the halls 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 97 

of infidel lecturers, and, in rare cases, 
men who are supposed to be respect- 
able and intelligent may submit to 
the appellation. But other means 
of evading the force of truth, involv- 
ing less peril to reputation, are now 
too numerous to permit the open emis- 
saries of Infidelity to hope for the coun- 
tenance of the public. Men who can- 
not accept the scandal of such an asso- 
ciation, but whose hearts are really 
hostile to the living element in the 
gospel, will sacrifice candour to repu- 
tation, and wear the Christian name, 
while they repudiate the proper sense 
of the Bible. The aristocracy of unbe- 
lieving intellect now passes the clubs 
of Paris, as a detestable vulgarity, and 
pursues its journey to the transcend- 
ental regions beyond the Rhine. 
9 



98 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

But among the people at large, the 
thing most feared, and which, in fact, 
has always followed the efforts of In- 
fidelity, is this — that its specious ap- 
peal to passions which are naturally 
restive under the holy sanctions of the 
Bible, will insensibly weaken the force 
of Divine truth upon the consciences 
of speculative believers, and bring about 
that result which is correctly named 
Practical Infidelity. This is the dan- 
ger which prompts the appearance of 
these pages. They are written, more 
in hope of a confirming, than a reclaim- 
ing influence. They go forth with the 
earnest desire that the yet unpolluted 
reader may be warned, never to allow 
his faith in the word of God to become 
shaken; never to think of any safe and 
honourable path of life, but such as the 
Bible marks out ; and never to doubt 



INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 99 

that the gospel scheme of mercy is, for 
him, the true way to heaven. The 
solemn inference arises from the whole 
of this examination, that there is fear- 
ful danger in trifling with the word of 
God. From every view which has 
been taken of the origin, growth, and 
fruits of Infidelity, the warning comes 
forth, that those gracious influences 
which flow through the holy Scriptures, 
cannot be neglected without placing 
both the moral character and the soul 
in peril of ruin. 

But though Infidelity, as such, is 
never to overwhelm the land, still indi- 
viduals are in danger of even the worst 
that has been contemplated. The 
young sinner often shudders at the 
thought of parting from the Bible, 
as a system of faith. In time, fa- 
miliarity with infidel criticisms and 



100 INFIDELITY AGAINST ITSELF. 

cavillings, brings him to look upon the 
word of God, with less reverence. As 
he feels himself more alienated from 
its spirit, he insensibly comes to wish 
it may prove true, that there is no such 
law and judgment against his sin. 
With that wish growing upon him, he 
listens to " the counsels of the ungodly.' 7 
By degrees dangerous intimacies spring 
up between himself and those enemies 
of his soul. Then he stands in " the 
way of sinners." It is but a step more 
to " the seat of the scornful." These are 
the progressive workings of an aliena- 
tion of heart, from the principles of the 
holy word. The first movement from 
the Bible brings the soul upon en- 
chanted gronnd. Few slumber there 
without sleeping the sleep of death. 



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